Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Use of Email in Group Decision Making

[Jose Marquez (marchpower]

> Have any cohousing groups developed methods for decision
> making by email?  (Particularly groups who have not yet moved in
> to cohousing.)

Hello!

We at Ciel/Duwamish have been dealing with the email issue quite a bit
lately.  We have pretty much done the following:

- Email List #1 is for basic business stuff...when and where a meeting is,
social event announcements, logistical info., etc.

- Email List #2 is called the Couch List and is for discussing issues other
than business.

We found that when discussion items were casually discussed it let to a lot
of misunderstanding and frustration and fear, etc.  So while we recently had
a Dynamic Facilitation Training and talked about gathering information with
specific questionaires over email, I think that otherwise it is a difficult
medium for most folks to use well.

March